Ayla

Ayla may refer to:

Characters of Chrono Trigger

This is a listing of notable characters from the video game Chrono Trigger, a role-playing video game released in 1995 by Square Co. (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. In keeping with the time travel theme of the game's storyline, the characters hail from different eras of a fictional history, ranging from prehistoric times to a post-apocalyptic future.

Creation and influences

The characters of Chrono Trigger were designed by Akira Toriyama based on sketches from the story planner Masato Kato. The development team wanted a diverse cast to reflect the various eras visited by the player; while working on the in-battle actions of the game, they decided to include a playable character that was neither human nor robot. Kato drew sketches for a cast of eight playable characters, comprising a male protagonist, the daughter of a fairy king, a tin robot, a monster man, an inventor girl, a demon king, a primitive girl, and an old sage. Pig and monkey characters were also considered. Six of the initial ideas were reworked by Toriyama, while the old sage character was scrapped and the monster man replaced with Toriyama's own frog man design.

Ayla (Earth's Children)

Ayla is the main character of Jean Auel's Earth's Children novels. She is a Cro-Magnon woman who was raised by Neanderthals. Ayla was played by Daryl Hannah in the 1986 movie The Clan of the Cave Bear. Ayla's character has been described as an example of the "rebellious primordial" that conquers adversity with wit and will.

Background

Ayla is orphaned as a young Cro-Magnon child when an earthquake opens a fissure in the ground into which the camp of her parents and the group of which they are part fall and are destroyed. Ayla is swimming nude in the river beside the campsite when the earthquake starts and watches the tragedy in horror. Wandering aimlessly, alone, frightened, hungry and helpless, Ayla eventually encounters a cave lion which chases her into a narrow crack in a rock wall. Attempting to pull Ayla out, the lion gashes open Ayla's leg, leaving four deep parallel wounds on her thigh. After a day spent hiding in terror and driven by thirst, Ayla, emerges from her hiding place to drink at the nearby stream and then collapses, delirious from fever and starvation. There she is found by a group of Neanderthals, a "Clan" led by Brun, and adopted by Iza, that Clan's medicinewoman or healer. Though neither Iza, Ayla's adoptive mother, nor Creb, the "Mog-ur" (a Shaman-like character) her adoptive father, know Ayla's age for certain, author Jean Auel places Ayla at the age of five years in the book's second paragraph, and her foster family eventually guesses her age accurately.